LYNDHURST — More than 20,000 cubic yards of "highly contaminated" mud and sediment are being removed from the Passaic River as part of a $20 million Superfund project seeking to rid the water of harmful chemicals.

"There's a long history of pollution here," Judith Enck, the EPA's regional administrator, said Wednesday during a press conference near the river. "For decades, factories along the river dumped toxic substances into the water."

Those factories were owned by pesticides and chemical companies, including Diamond Shamrock Chemicals, which manufactured Agent Orange for the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Now, mercury, dioxins and PCBs abound in the mudflats and sediment, and the state Department of Environmental Protection advises against eating anything that comes out of the river.

EPA regional administrator Judith Enck speaks at a press conference next to the Passaic River on Wednesday, Aug. 7. At right is Lyndhurst Mayor Robert Giangeruso, Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan and Congressman Bill Pascrell. S.P. Sullivan/NJ.com

Crews have been working since Saturday to remove contaminated material from the six-acre mudflat, which sits next to Riverside County Park in Lyndhurst.

Large machinery positioned over the water removes the contaminated sediment from the river, loading it onto a barge to be sent downriver to treatment facilities. There the water will be extracted from the mud and treated before the solid material is sent out of state for disposal, officials said.

Once the mud is removed, crews will put a two-foot cap on the riverbed to prevent the release of any remaining harmful material. The project is expected to be completed by year's end, Enck said.

The Lyndhurst project is just one piece of a 17-mile stretch of the lower Passaic spanning from the Dundee Dam in Garfield down to the Newark Bay that needs to be remediated. As part of a massive settlement reached in June, a host of companies deemed responsible for the dumping agreed to pay $130 million toward the clean-up.

But Congressman Bill Pascrell, whose district includes towns along the Passaic, said Wednesday that he was concerned by reports that Gov. Chris Christie was considering directing as much as $40 million from the settlement toward balancing the state budget.

"What we want to do is spend the money here to clean up this river," Pascrell said.

The Congressman wrote Christie's office on Tuesday to request that the entire settlement "be put towards the remediation and environmental restoration of the Passaic River, and not diverted to alternate programs."

State Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin said Wednesday that the "cleanup of the entire Passaic River remains a priority for the Christie administration."

As the wounded Passaic limps toward recovery, officials drew hope from the progress shown by the new Riverfront Park in Newark, whose opening drew crowds this weekend, just as workers were setting into the river here in Lyndhurst. The park was heralded as another step toward reclaiming the polluted waterfront.

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"When you clean up urban waterways, people flock to the river," Enck said. "It's a tremendous opportunity for recreation and economic growth."

But Ana Baptista, a member of the Community Advisory Group for the project, said that the crowds that gathered at the park's opening wanted to do more than just watch the tides from the boardwalk.

"Many of them turned and asked, 'Is it clean? Can we fish in it? Can we swim in it? Can we boat in it?" Baptista said. "It hurt me a little bit to say we still have a lot work to do on this river. Our work is not done."